


from a certain point of view

by RaineyDay



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [13]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Gen, Poisoning, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29472300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaineyDay/pseuds/RaineyDay
Summary: Febuwhump Alternate Prompt 1: Truth SerumTaako and Lup know better than to admit to being Fae. It wouldn't end well. As Fae, they have to tell the truth, yes, but not thewhole, completetruth.Truth serums are a little more demanding, though.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans & Magnus Burnsides & Davenport & Merle Highchurch & Lucretia & Lup & Taako, IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew & Lup, IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew & Taako, Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138502
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	from a certain point of view

**Author's Note:**

> love fae stories. also, as an autistic person, this is also lowkey an autistic/adhd twins au, because of the whole 'changeling child as an explanation for neurodivergent children' but if faeries were actually real instead. that's not relevant, I just want you to know that.

Taako and Lup had always been different from everyone around them. It wasn't always a positive thing.

Their family had realized that they were fae touched at a young age, and from then on, had wanted nothing to do with them. Not that they'd been particularly enthusiastic about taking in the orphaned twins in the first place, this was just one more strike against them.

But of course, they'd known better than to completely abuse or abandon them, as that would only result in some very pissed off Fae coming after them for revenge. If Taako and Lup had _known_ that the Fae would want to protect them, then maybe their childhood would have been a lot different, but their knowledge of the fae- of _themselves_ \- had been incredibly spotty, and some of their relatives had started a bit of a purposeful misinformation campaign out of fear of that exact thing.

They learned what they could, and hoped that it would be enough.

They learned their strengths- an innate talent for magic- especially _creative_ uses of it-, powerful senses, a knack for clever words and bargains.

And they learned their weaknesses- magically bound to repay certain kinds of debs, easily overwhelmed by those powerful senses, and an inherent obligation to tell the truth.

They learned very quickly how to be deceptive with their words without actually speakings falsehoods, how to compartmentalize away their own opinions in order to be less bound to the 'truth' in terms of their own personal beliefs and ideas, at least until they could get whatever they wanted out of whomever they were speaking to.

Everything they said was true- though, in some cases, only depending on your perspective. Most people they'd fooled would likely not care too much about the distinction, but it was still an important one.

As Fae without contact with a court, they were in a vulnerable position. They had to repay their debts, and they could not lie, two major issues for children on their own, and perennial grifters without a safety net to fall back on.

There was a reason why Fae had become so insular and so vicious towards outsiders, and it wasn't an innate desire for cruelty, no matter what the rest of the world may claim.

That was another major issue. The fact that the rest of the world saw Fae as inherently deceitful and threatening. Did make it somewhat difficult to feel safe opening up to anyone.

But this place- these people felt safe. The Starblaster and her crew felt like home. It was a little bit terrifying, if they were being honest (which they had to be, of course, but they didn't have to be _open_ about it).

That was probably why they still hadn't managed to tell the rest of the crew what they were. If they gave the others all that power over them, they would never be able to get it all back.

There was only so long that they could hold out on avoiding the topic though, they knew. They were clever and they were good at surviving, but eventually the others would realize that their lies were always truths. That their insistence on proper payment of debts wasn't just a 'grew up poor' thing. That they moved and reacted in a way that wasn't quite normal.

Being the only elves on the ship probably helped them keep it on the down low. A lot of their differences could easily be attributed to elf-specific quirks, rather than Fae-specific quirks, and there were no other elves left to ask if that was a thing that was normal for elves or not.

It would be worse for them if the others found out without them admitting it. It was a lot more suspicious that way, and it would make the others wonder if they had been using their Fae secrets to their advantage.

They weren't- they wouldn't know how to, even if they were willing to do it to this family- but it was a reasonable thing to wonder regardless.

But they just kept putting it off anyway. It was going to be so unpleasant. Their family would feel awkward about it at best, if not outright resentful and suspicious. Taako and Lup couldn't afford to alienate the only other survivors of their world- the only other people who still always felt _real_.

Still, the fact that the others weren't aware of their true nature was definitely less than ideal at times, like when it meant that the crew members who had gone out scouting didn't feel any need to mention the fact that this plane was even more virulently anti-Fae than their home world had been.

They hadn't realized that fact until they were already out in the world they'd landed on, too late to back out and retreat without looking suspicious.

It would be okay- probably. They'd just have to be careful about staying on the ship this cycle, and make sure not to do anything that might be noticed by the natives.

Maybe they'd even finally own up to the others about the whole thing, just to make sure that they weren't forced into an uncomfortable position.

As soon as they got back to the ship, they'd be okay.

Cap'n'port had arranged a meeting with some important locals to discuss their presence in this plane and explain the search for the light. That was a pretty usual situation by now, and Taako and Lup would have been uninterested in going if it weren't for the fact that they hadn't had a chance to explore this plane yet and Cap'n had insisted on their presence.

Merle was staying behind on the ship for safety, but Davenport wanted to introduce as many of them as possible to the locals, to encourage trust in them. These people were big on honesty and transparency, and it would be better if they could convince them that their crew meant them no harm. Leaving too many people behind would look suspicious, apparently, and they'd already claimed that someone needed to stay on board at all times to 'keep the ship running.' More than that would not be accepted by these folk.

It made sense to work with the natives' customs, yeah, and it hadn't bothered the twins before they'd known what this world was like, so they had no justification to go back on that now, not without admitting everything in public where anyone could overhear them.

So they'd go along with it for now.

The meeting with the locals went as usual, Davenport and Lucretia offering the formal niceties, Magnus offering friendly greetings, Barry, polite but awkward, and the twins charming but aloof.

Davenport introduced them all, and they were invited to sit around a large square table to discuss their business.

"Before we begin our talks, there is a tradition we would like to invite you to participate in," the leader of whatever this region was called said. Taako was pretty sure he was named EJ or something.

"Thank you. What kind of tradition?" Davenport asked, just a touch on edge, but exuding calm despite it.

"Just a simple toast to health and prosperity," EJ assured, and a pair of waitstaff began to set glasses in front of them and fill them with a shimmery yellow liquid.

When everyone at the table had a glass, EJ lifted his own and gestured for them to do the same.

Taako eyed the glass suspiciously, but before he could say anything, Barry elbowed him in the side subtly.

"Don't," he hissed, as EJ began to blather on meaningless niceties and well wishes.

Taako rolled his eyes, but figured there was no reason not to drink the thing. If they were going to poison them or something, they'd likely have shown some signs of their malice before now.

EJ drank his glass, and that was also reassuring, since they'd all been poured from the same pitcher, so Taako felt no serious qualms about tossing his own back.

It was shockingly cold, and he blinked in surprise, but cold drinks never killed anybody, so he kept a neutral expression on his face, instead of making any comments.

"Wonderful!" EJ said. "Now I must admit to you all that I neglected to mention something about that drink. It contained a potion which compels the drinker to tell the truth."

Taako went stiff and shot Barry a vindicated glare, even if he hadn't truly expected something like this. He'd been _right_ to question them! Barry winced back at him, shrugging.

"I don't quite know how to respond to that," Davenport said, slowly and carefully. "I do not like the fact that you put anything into the drinks of myself and my crew that we did not agree to."

"I understand completely," EJ said, sympathetically. "If it had been up to me, I would have told you right out. Most of our visitors are aware of the policy, and I thought it unfair not to tell you."

"I advised EJ not to," another leader explained. "And we voted upon it, and my position won out. I worried that you would not understand and reject our requirements, which would be unpleasant for us all."

"You didn't give us a chance to agree at all. I find that- it makes you seem somewhat untrustworthy that you said nothing," Davenport managed.

Taako nodded emphatically, wanting to cheer a little. Use their morals against them, Cap'n!

"I understand that position," the other leader responded. "But currently we are all compelled to tell the truth. Therefore, we are on equal level. Ask us any questions you may have regarding your safety with us, and we will answer honestly."

"Can't say I agree that it's equal," Lup argued. "You had the benefit of knowing what was in that drink. Even if it's not something dangerous, I still get unnerved personally when someone drugs me without my knowledge."

"I apologize for the discomfort, then," the leader spoke. "But what's done is done. Let us move on."

"Fine," Davenport agreed, before tensions could go too much higher. "Do you have plans to harm us?"

"Not at present, though our strategists are discussing possibilities for the chance that you attack us. But so long as you refrain from that, we have no intent to hurt any of you. We do not hurt innocents."

Taako figured that maybe he and Lup ought to take control of this conversation. They were used to being unable to lie, after all. But he had no way of testing what the potion considered truth and lies, and wasn't certain that their careful truths would even work against the thing, or if those would be considered 'lies' by the potion.

Lup's hand grabbed his own all of sudden, and Taako nearly jumped at how cold it was. He gave Lup a concerned look, and saw that she looked kind of pale and out of it.

"Hey!" he shouted, interrupting EJ as he stood up suddenly to confront the guy. "You sure that this potion whatever is safe to drink? Even for us aliens?"

"I- I am unaware of any reason that it would not be. I suppose I cannot be _certain_ , but it seems unlikely that your biology is that different from that of elves on our plane."

Taako's words had prompted the rest of the crew to look over at them, and Magnus and Barry were moving toward them immediately, Barry checking over Lup and helping brace her against the chair, and Magnus pushing Taako to sit back down in his chair. Taako hadn't realized how weird and weak he felt until Magnus forced him down, and then it was all Taako could do to keep his head up.

"In fact," EJ continued, "it seems far more likely that what has affected you is the other element to the drink, which is a poison, though one that only affects Fae."

Taako's blood ran cold as the words sunk in, though it was hard to tell when his entire body felt so cold already.

The rest of the crew froze at that, looking between EJ and the twins slowly.

"Lup? Taako? Are you..." Lucretia was the one to ask, though she trailed off, shaking her head as if to dismiss the thought, and turning back to EJ. "You claim that there is no reason you believe this could have a negative affect on any of us, and yet there's poison in that drink?"

"It only affects Fae. I see that your crew was unaware of their nature- hardly surprising that _Fae_ would hide something like that-" EJ spit, his formerly friendly expression twisted into one of disgust. "-and so we will not judge the rest of you on this matter, but you must let the poison run its course. It will be beneficial to us all to be rid of them."

"My point-" Lucretia said, icily. "-was that you cannot know that there is no other explanation than that. Perhaps Fae and elves from our plane share more in common than Fae and elves- or any other species for that matter- from yours."

"That is a fair point," the other leader said, calmly, though she leveled a hard glare at Taako and Lup as she spoke. "Taako and Lup was it? Are you Fae?"

The word "yes" slipped from Taako's throat before he could stop it, and he heard Lup say the same. So it was compulsive truth, then, good to know. Not that it mattered, since they were currently dying(?) from poison.

"There you have it!" the leader spoke, turning to face Lucretia again.

"We have to get them back to the ship," Barry said, urgently, to Magnus, who nodded.

Taako felt himself be lifted into the air by Magnus, and groaned at the way it made the whole world spin and blur.

"No!" the woman said. "Do not save the Fae, or we will immediately halt all peaceful negotiations and attack."

It was the truth, of course. Couldn't have been anything else.

Taako expected Magnus to pause, to wait for instructions for Davenport. Maggie wouldn't want to let them die, but he'd listen to the Captain, and sometimes they just had to let it happen. They'd be back next cycle anyway, so sometimes they just had to leave somebody to die, when saving them would only risk the rest of them or risk finding the light.

He wasn't expecting Davenport to shout "Magnus, Barry, go! Run!"

And then Magnus was running, and Taako lost consciousness before he could question that.

-

When he awoke, he and Lup were curled together on one bed in the medbay, which probably meant- Taako craned his head to look around- yep, the rest of the beds were full.

There weren't a ton of beds in the medbay, because when they'd been planning the mission, everyone had figured that if they ever needed more than three beds at once, they'd be pretty fucked and would have bigger concerns than that.

Given the number of times they'd run into that problem though, they'd figure out some workarounds, namely, which pairs were best suited for sharing if they were both hurt.

The other two beds only had one person each though- Magnus on one and Davenport on another- so hopefully it wasn't too bad. Unless the reason that none of the others were present was that they'd died in the escape.

Lup seemed pretty deep under still, so Taako was careful not to jostle her as he sat up.

He felt like shit, but he could move without the world spinning or his body threatening to collapse, so he figured that was pretty good, al things considered.

Lup groaned next to him, despite his effort to be careful, so he reached out to help her sit too.

He heard someone gasp awake from the other side of the room where the beds were, and turned in confusion to see Lucretia blinking awake in a chair, an open journal in her lap, clearly having fallen asleep on accident.

When she saw them, she hurried to them, eyes wandering over them quickly and nervously.

"You're awake!" she said, relief evident in her voice.

"Yeah," Taako managed. "How long were we out?"

"Um, I'm not completely certain- I just woke up-" she said, a slight blush rising in her cheeks at being caught, "but somewhere around 12 hours, I think."

"Hey, don't worry about falling asleep, Luce. You needed rest, clearly," Lup assured, waving a hand dismissively at Lucretia's clear self-consciousness. Taako was glad she said it, because he'd been _thinking_ it, but he wasn't as good at emotions as Lup was, and wouldn't have said anything himself.

"Do you want me to get Merle?" Lucretia asked.

"In a minute," Taako said, suddenly nervous at the idea of facing any of the rest of the crew. Lucretia hadn't said anything yet, but that might just mean that she wasn't upset enough about their deception to want them _dead_ , and that didn't tell him anything about how everyone else was handling this. "What'd we miss?"

"Not much," Lucretia said. "We got out of there pretty quickly after they realized that we weren't going to let them kill you, and we've been laying low since. Merle was able to heal you two and Magnus and Davenport. Me and Barry weren't hurt too bad, so everybody's okay."

"Good," Lup said, letting out a sigh of relief, that Taako felt as well.

There was a moment of awkward silence after that, and Taako knew that it was about the fact that they were Fae, but he didn't know what to do about it.

"I'm sorry!" Lucretia blurted, before he could find the words, and Taako's head tilted to the side in confusion. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Lup do the same.

"What for, babe?" Lup asked.

"It was my fault they asked if you were Fae," Lucretia said, quietly. "And I wasn't trying to make it sound like-" she made a frustrated noise, and waved her hands vaguely, like she couldn't find the right words, so Taako spoke before she finished.

"They were gonna think that even if they didn't ask, Creesh," he shrugged. "And, like, they weren't _wrong_ , so. Not your fault."

"Okay, yeah," Lucretia nodded. "But I still have to apologize, because I don't want you to think that I only protested because I thought you weren't Fae."

Taako did not understand what the problem was, so he waited for Lucretia to keep speaking, which she did after a moment of nervous fidgeting.

"I didn't know you were affected because you were Fae- obviously, I didn't- but I figured that if you _were_ \- are- that the elves and Fae being more alike on our plane excuse could get us out of there without them attacking us."

"Yeah, good thinking," Taako agreed. "It didn't work, but you don't gotta apologize for that."

"I'm trying to say that I don't care that you're Fae!" Lucretia said, frustrated. "I thought you might think that I said that because I didn't believe you _could_ be Fae, and that it might hurt you to think that."

"Oh," Taako said. He really wasn't sure what to say to that. A huge fucking relief, if true.

He found himself still uncertain if it actually was true though. Why did she not care? Everybody on their plan knew that Fae were (supposedly) tricksters at best, and monsters at worst. And they'd lied to everyone about being Fae for so long. How was this not just confirming those fears?

"I'll get Merle now," Lucretia said, turning away from them.

Taako turned to look at Lup, who was watching Lucretia leave with a fond but conflicted expression.

"You think that attitude's gonna last, or?" Taako asked.

"I hope so," Lup said, soft. "I don't want them to be afraid of us."

"Me either," Taako admitted.

It didn't take long for Lucretia to return with Merle, and it looked like Barry had tagged along to see them as well.

Barry grinned brightly at them both when he saw them, which made the fear in Taako's chest loosen a little. Maybe it really was going to be okay.

Merle grumbled at them to stay still and started prodding them with magic, making sure they were really okay, before pronouncing them recovered.

Magnus managed to wake up then too, and hurried over and gave them both a big hug.

"You're okay!" he enthused.

"Yeah, big guy," Taako said, grinning. "Now put us down."

Magnus did so, a bit reluctantly, and it seemed that the noise had disturbed Davenport as well now, too, who stayed where he was until Merle proclaimed him stable enough to move over.

Taako found himself growing a bit nervous as Davenport came over. The whole crew was here, knowing the truth about them, and Davenport's opinion would have a lot of impact on what was going to happen next.

"I'm glad you two are okay. I wish you would have said something about being Fae earlier, so we could have avoided this," he said, sighing slightly as he spoke. "But I'm very glad to see you safe."

"Sorry, Cap'n," he and Lup murmured at the same moment, in a show of deference that they'd never extended to any of their family members growing up.

"I understand why you wouldn't want to share that information," Davenport said, his brow furrowing in concern. "But I hope you know that none of us see you any differently now."

Lup glanced around, clearly not quite certain if they could believe that, and Taako only held himself back from it because he never let himself be so emotionally vulnerable when Lup could do it for him.

"Yeah?" Lup asked, finally.

"Of course," Davenport said, firm. "The way people act about Fae- you had every right to be nervous. But you're family. We know better than that. I'm sorry that we didn't act in a way that made it clear that you could tell us this."

The words sounded too good to be true. But Taako trusted Davenport. He trusted all of them. And they were all nodding along, supportive and sorrowful right alongside him.

Okay. Maybe being open and honest wasn't always the worst thing in the world. Not when you had people like this loving you.


End file.
